The evidence that cars don’t work as primary mass transport in cities is everywhere: traffic jams, air pollution, accident rates, the shocking fraction of city space taken up by parking spaces, safety barriers/bollards etc. This 100 year experiment should be declared over, and we should put proper effort into the systems that HAVE been shown to work and scale: walking, cycling, e-cargo bikes, cheap/accessible/reliable public transport. This “argument” about LTNs is just lazy delay. #LTN#cities
The solution to “autobesity” is NOT to change car parking spaces. It’s to fix the root of the problem and get rid of these over-sized, wasteful, dangerous and unnecessary vehicles.
“More than 150 car models are now too big to fit in average car parking spaces, according to analysis conducted by Which?.”
I love the Sim City games (ever since I played the original in school in the early 90s!) I recently grabbed Cities: Skylines on Switch when it was on sale for less than $10 and I haven't dived in yet, but I'm psyched to eventually.
But this time, instead of just jumping in and building whatever (as I often do, recently with both the Sim City mobile game and the Sim City on DS), I'm doing some research on city design, to try and build something in a meaningful way. I want to see what designs I really like most, etc. From what I hear about Skylines, it's super realistic, and I should be able to build a cool, futuristic city that's fully green, sustainable, etc.
Anybody else played Skylines or is a big fan of any of the other Sim City games?
“In Finland, the number of homeless people has fallen sharply. Those affected receive a small apartment and counselling with no preconditions. 4 out of 5 people affected make their way back into a stable life. And all this is CHEAPER than accepting homelessness.”
Let that sink in. It costs less than accepting homelessness. #Finland#Helsinki#homeless#cities#homes https://scoop.me/housing-first-finland-homelessness/
I love the idea of cities that are far more people-centred than most today, with properly flexible travel options and fewer cars… and maybe we’re not that far away (and not just in Utrecht). Today I had a large box to collect from my sister, so I had a nice run across London to her house, then a cup of tea, and then a PedalMe e-cargo bike arrived to take me and the box home. And it was FUN. More of this! #cities#bikes#ecargo#climate
Climate resilience: Has the time come to start demanding lighter-coloured streets in hotter climates?
At this stage, the challenge with climate change is not just preventing it from happening by cutting emissions. We also need to make our cities resilient to the climate change we've already locked in.
That's where lighter coloured paving for streets, rather than dark asphalt, can help:
"Sebastian Pfautsch doesn't hesitate when asked what he would change first to cool Australian cities in summer.
"And it's not what you might expect. It's not the seemingly endless expanse of black roofs, soaking up the sun beneath a shimmering haze.
"It's the roads. About a third of any outer suburb is thermally dense black asphalt that can reach 75 degrees Celsius, according to Professor Pfautsch, an expert on urban heat at the University of Western Sydney.
...
"Lighter-coloured roads may make intuitive sense, like wearing a white shirt on a hot day, but how effectively do they reduce surface and ambient air temperature?
"In 2020, two separate cool roads trials in Sydney and Adelaide set out to conclusively answer these questions.
"The Sydney trial, which took place at about 10 sites in the Western Sydney suburbs of Blacktown, Campbelltown and Parramatta, recorded an average surface temperature reduction of 5.6C and 2C for day and night respectively.
"For context, tree shade reduced the surface temperatures of roads by 16C."
So despite climate change, Australia's federal government has just committed an extra $3.25 billion into building a toll road and a 20-lane freeway widening.
"Pouring an extra $3.25 billion worth of federal funds into Melbourne’s North East Link is a good use of taxpayer money, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has insisted, despite the project’s cost doubling just a few months ago.
...
"The North East Link – which includes 6½ kilometres of tunnels – will stretch from Bulleen to Greensborough. It will widen the Eastern Freeway by up to 20 lanes.
"Allan revealed in December that the 10-kilometre toll road had more than doubled in cost since it was first announced.
"The toll road was initially budgeted at $10 billion and reassessed in 2019 at $15 billion. But the government revealed last year that the updated cost estimate was $26 billion."
Yet as @DrTCombs shows in this video, many road crossings are designed to make pedestrians wait at least that long before getting a walk signal.
This video shows one such crossing in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, but there are many more intersections like this across North America, Australia, and New Zealand.
One of the things I was mulling over on my smokey walk this morning was an idea for legislation that would require owners of apartment dwellings who want to sell the buildings to be required to first offer them to the current tenants with some government support to turn them into a co-op not-for-profit. #Urbanism#Cities
“Through rewilding we hope to see people forming relationships with other life forms and ecologies. To us, rewilding is about opening to relationships – this makes us alive.”
In our latest piece, Helen Cushing interviews the team at Singapore landscape architecture firm Salad Dressing >>
For those unfamiliar with it, Lemmy is basically a federated version of Reddit, distributed across multiple servers like Mastodon. (For anyone who wants to delve further, lemmy.ml, beehaw.org, and aussie.zone are three popular Lemmy instances.)
From Mastodon, you can follow any Lemmy group by following its handle, exactly the same way that you would follow a Mastodon account. Any new posts to that group will then begin appearing in your Mastodon feed.
Even better, if you start a thread on Mastodon, you can also post it to a relevant Lemmy group just by including its handle in your post. (Please note this only seems to work with the first post of a thread.)
My spouse worked for a short-term rental company, an #AirBNB competitor, and wow did I hear an earful from them about the kinds of chaos these places can cause. One factor driving away the individual homeowner posting their extra 'crash space' online vs. the massive conglomerates is how little help the companies offer when something goes wrong (i.e. a renter sets off fireworks in your house while you're renting it out). Giant property owners can eat those kinds of losses and don't have sentimental attachment to their homes.
It’s still a BIG problem that because of car manufacturing influence, most media & political energy goes to EVs, with not NEARLY enough going to fewer cars/less driving. But the priority HAS to be the latter, the part of the solution that will actually do much more public good. #EV#ElectricVehicles#cars#cities
I have a fondness for aged, dilapidated commercial buildings in KL. Places like Wisma Central and Wisma Cosway, teetering on the edge of decay, survive thanks to the bustling presence of nearby office workers and blue-collar workers seeking a budget-friendly lunch spot or convenient services like a quick haircut. Within these weathered walls, a charming cyberpunk ambiance lingers and affordable food spots thrive, made possible by the relatively low rent. #MakanApaToday#Food#Cities#Malaysia
"A fightback is now well under way, driven by a pressing need to cut air pollution and combat the climate crisis, and a wish to reclaim #cities as pleasant places to live. Most major European cities now have schemes in place to reduce road traffic.
Strategies vary, from #CongestionCharges, parking restrictions and limited traffic zones to public transport and cycle lanes. Evidence suggests that a combination of carrot and stick – and consultation – works best."
"Public investment" vs "Wasteful Subsidy." The only problem with this clever classic Singer cartoon is that some people might not get that it’s illustrating the perception problem, NOT telling the truth.
Just in case it actually needs to be said, the truth is exactly the opposite.
I think that there should be a law stating that you’re only allowed to call a new development XYZ Gardens if at least 50% of the area is covered in actual publicly accessible gardens, with trees and everything. And there should be a second law that at least 50% of all new developments must be named Gardens. #UrbanPlanning#cities#GreenSpace
Platforms like #AirBNB & VRBO cause massive messes across #Texas (and the globe). In #Fredericksburg, 1,900+ short-term units now comprise nearly 25 percent of the housing inventory.
Urban Details — a community celebrating everything that cities do right, from tiny Easter eggs or interesting street art pieces to city-encompassing infrastructure projects or unusual public spaces
Check out the pinned post for a general guide to the community that includes lots of relevant examples....